4 decades chartering and commercial fishing all over the
waters, reefs and atolls of Belize.

15 years as Director of the British Honduras and later Belize
Fisheries Research Experimental Station,at Caye Caulker. Later
replaced by Ministerial request by a newly created government
Fisheries Department.

15 years training and certifying Scuba Divers for the British
Honduras Scuba Association ( now defunct ) ( we trained the two
brothers who started PADI in the USA). With subsequent scuba
underwater expeditions all over the territorial waters of Belize.

My feeling is, that with the growth of population, certain
species need "protected areas". The conch is no different. I
would recommend that 'Lighthouse Reef Atoll' all that area from
the south point to the north point and along the Eastern Reef,
commonly referred to as the 'Boat Passage' and encompassing an
area 'ONE QUARTER MILE' behind the reef to the West, be declared
a non-conch fishing area. To be protected as a nursery and
feeding ground.

The second choice, and there are only really these two
locations in Belize geographically suitable to be nursery areas,
is that area stretching along the main barrier reef from Goffs
Caye to the Mexican Border in the north. Again, an area 'ONE
QUARTER MILE' to the Westward behind the barrier reef. There is
one point to be extended and that would be that area from the
north point of Caye Caulker, westward from the barrier reef to
Crawl Caye and over to the southern area of Ambergris Caye. This
may already be part of the Hol Chan Marine Preserve.

Conch are found over most of the territorial waters of Belize.
But a lot of the water is deep, or mixed with narrow shallow
areas adjoining deeper areas. Conch divers without SCUBA gear,
using only snorkel, commonly dive only up to 40 ft depth.

I would prohibit the use of SCUBA gear for commercially diving
CONCH.

These two areas are known nurseries for conchs. There are
others in Belize, but these are the most easily accessible to
divers and in the shallow waters, they have the sunlight, the
feed that conch like in abundance. These two places were once,
inundated with thousands of conch schools, that crawled along the
bottom. In my memory for sure! They were fished out, when the
need to export raw materials for foreign exchange earnings became
more necessary than preservation of natural resources.